Bloodspeak
by Elizabeth Cords
Summary: Were Riddick to journal for posterity, it'd look a lot like this. one-shot ***Warning: this is visceral - borders on splatterpunk. If you don't like discussion of blood, skip it.***


_Splatterpunk—refers to a movement within horror fiction distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence and "hyperintensive horror with no limits." It is regarded as a revolt against the "traditional, meekly suggestive horror story._

I post this mainly for ppl who are following my other stories. I'm stalled out, and usually Big Evil and I meta when that happens(those conversations can be found at VinX) but he's gone dark on me... _very dark._ Psychological analysis welcome (of him... not me.)

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Blood. Everyone thinks I have an obsession with it. It's not true.

Yeah, I'll use it to get a rise outta people, make them squirm, just talking about it. But most people... humans that is... have such a *heh* gut level reaction, revulsion, if they see it. Smell it. Touch it. Taste it...

Inborn or conditioning? Couldn't say. Them... not me. Maybe because if they see it, ect... it means something _wrong_. It belongs on the _inside._ Pumping quietly, unseen, unheard. Passing messages and nutrients throughout the body.

Surprised I know that? Hmm... you'd be surprised at what I know. Love to fall back on that "penal system education" line... but that's all it is, a line. Weren't no prep school for advanced aeronautics, but for me, the extracurriculars and hands-on training were second to none.

I'll let your fearful little minds contemplate that one for a bit. School of hard knocks and all that shit. Plenty of people go through the system, never learn a goddamn thing. Very much a self-motivated environment, my education. Finding the right teachers, taking opportunities as they came. Helped that I learned early to be... persuasive. Charisma? Charm? Yeah, got that in spades, if I feel like being manipulative, but he prefers the easier route. Is quicker. I don't argue. When he wants something, it's never good to protest.

Too much of a disconnect? I'd apologize, but I don't. Can say the word... "Sorry"... but it don't mean shit, and you and I both know it. Regrets, apologies, those are for the weak. Those that live in the moment have no such luxury of contemplation and analysis. It's his way more than mine, but... he keeps me alive.

Him. The other side. The id. -Yeah, I pay attention to the rat-fucking yo-yo scientists playing psychoanalysis.- I just don't care for the longwinded waste of oxygen words they use. - The animal side. The beast. Don't give a shit what you call it. Isn't yours to name. You don't share a body with it.

*Heh* I'm not fractured. Not a multiple-personality thing. Met some of those in slam. Broken by trauma. Shit they couldn't face, so they didn't. Disassociate. Nope. He's in my head and talks to _me_. Guides _me_. That he has a voice, an agenda of his own... well, think it's in a lot of people. Fuckers talk about conscience, voice of god, something whispering to them... that little thing that rides your emotions, makes you feel good or bad about your actions... imagine ampin' that thing up on steroids and attaching it to your base instincts- to survive. That's _him._ Dark, deep and deadly. Obviously beat the shit out of my little conscience-angel in the cradle.

Does it upset you to see me analyze it myself? Don't even think I'm blaming some 'voice' for what I do. Responsibility for my actions is my own. Psychopaths lack remorse, have shallow emotional control and don't consider what harm their actions will bring - to themselves or others. I _know_ someone ain't walking away in a fight, I'm just realistic about the outcome. Psychos always take the easy way out and have no concept of ever getting taken down and caught. Fuckers lack reality. And they lie a lot. Sociopathic tendencies... yeah, I had the childhood for it. Boo hoo. Everyone's life has static. I don't feel the need to dominate or punish anyone for my shitty upbringing. Don't want to fit in or be admired, rule the fucking world. So really, I ain't either. I _am_ a different animal.

Back to the blood though. Given you enough time to get over it. Indulgent of me, ain't it? Just so I can mindfuck you more. You know it. Why I'm talking. To disprove all your damned theories, stories. You'd like to put me in a box, I know it. Control me. Or at least pretend to understand the motivating factors of my actions.

Yeah, read that shit in one of my files. Open on the counter where I'd impaled one of those psychiatrists with his own pen. Had to hold him down, let him bleed out a second. Didn't quite hit the artery square. He was thrashing. I was bored. I _do_ like a clean kill. Which is why I don't get the fuckin' blood obsession I'm pegged with. Spook a few cons and civies with a blood-drinking story and I'm suddenly a psycho-killer. Must be because of the knives.

I hate guns. Twofold. Remind me of the fuckin' military, and the simple fact that you can't rely on them. Limited by what ammo you're carrying, range of the gauge, and god-forbid they jam up. Impersonal. You aren't aware what you're doing. Too much disconnect with the target. The enemy. The victim. If I kill you, it's personal. I at least have the courtesy to put my hands on you if I'm gonna end your time in the 'verse. War isn't personal. It's about numbers. Who has more men and more ammo. Not a lot of honor in that. Piece of a machine. You don't matter. Your life doesn't matter. Cannon-fucking-fodder.

Eh, but my bitterness shows, don't it? I put in the time to earn it. Cog in the fucking machine. Didn't break under the pressure they put on me. Excelled even. _He_ liked the game of it. "Yes sir." "No sir" "Target eliminated, sir." Liked frying those goddamn spitters on Sigma 3 too. Think time in the corps peeled back the layers, broke me down, shined him up, let him surface. All the fuckin' discipline and structure, meant to make you a robot, so you don't _think_, you _react_. Train your reactions, instincts. But he was already there. He _was_ my instincts. Tiger out of the cage. Dark beast set free.

Add all that "Alpha Furyan" shit and I've got girls wetting their fucking pants all over the fucking 'verse. "Animal side" and all that shit. _He_ finds it amusing. Wants to mate with the lot of them. Selfish-fucking prick. Spread the seed and all that. Stupid fuck. Like I need a buncha mini-mes running around, all under the control of delusional chicklets I fucked one goddamn time. Seems to be a common dream. None of them wanna achieve greatness themselves, just fuck it. Hide behind big daddy, or live it out through their spawn.

And I aint. No charismatic anti-hero. I'm just a fuckin' guy. Why won't the world fuckin' leave me alone? Let me fuckin' _sleep. _Ain't much to ask... leave me alone. Don't wanna take care of no one but myself. No unit, no best friend, no fuckin' lover. Lot of bullshit. I just want to be alone. Let me hunt n kill on my own terms. Let me survive. Leave me be like the bunnies and tigers and goddamn flowers, ok? Don't want to save your town, your planet, your mom, your race. _ Leave me the fuck alone. _Cuts down on the body count. The notoriety. Let me fuckin' ghost.

Not that I didn't kill anyone didn't deserve it. Didn't know it was coming. We all make fucking choices in life. That includes fucking mercs and prison guards and doctors. Don't tell me greed ain't the creed in prison. Doctors fuckin' want to practice your art on fuckin' brain-dead civies in the burbs - there's a place for you. Wanna protect the fuckin' public, get a job as a crossing guard at a fuckin' grade school.

... You get off on adrenaline and beating the shit outta boys bigger and badder than you cuz you got guns n ammo and fuckin' other shit to quiet the populace... you become a prison guard. All about choices. You made yours. You came up against me. _Him. _ When he wanted out. You coulda stood down. Taken the court martial. Reprimand and pay cut to your nice little civie life. Faced your coward self in the mirror the next day. Cuz you had a next day.

But you see my shiv... it's too late. Silver bleeds red. I take the quickest way out. What I was bred to do. Trained to do. Blame society, blame the Company. I don't fuckin' care. I end lives. They stand between me and my goal.... that's the end.

Ain't gonna lie, say I don't like it. It's a rush. Adrenaline. Dopamine. It's when you really live.

_He_ may live off it. The force and counterforce of lives ending. Watching the ghost leave. Can't say I don't feel that sometimes... the soul -slick second of departure. That's a fuckin' high. Watchin' it leave a body. The liquid movement in an eye, the way the pupil contracts, the shudder and seize up of the muscles as the heart gives...

You know it's all about pressure, right? Certain amount of force inside the body, pressure required by the circulatory system to keep the heart pumping... hard to believe such a simple homemade weapon could provide the thrust necessary to upset the balance. Only takes 6 pounds of pressure to cut skin though.

Physics and physiology. Student of science.. that's all I am. Action/reaction. Thrust. Release. Dunno why such a basic concept upsets so many people. We been killin each other since caveman days, threat and survival, and for a lot stupider reasons. Selfishness and greed. Whole societies built on taking shit away from others, not cuz they need it, just cuz they want it. Technology always enhancing the speed and lessening the skill it takes to steal another man's cookie. Do onto him before he fuckin' does onto you.

How many millennium have we been doin' it? Basic mutation of the survival instinct. And it ain't been bred out of us yet.

Me though? Give me good old caveman utility. Speed, grace and skill. Basics. Is not a bad way to go, really. Quick... painless. Shit. Most nervous systems don't have time to register pain before a body bleeds out. _If_ you hit an artery. Personable and quick. The Reaper staring you in the face, 'stead of off at sniper range... or worse, not even known. To know the fingers of your death on your skin... much more respect than old age or disease...

Blood though... such a visceral reaction. Why the fuck women scream when they see it? Faint and all that shit. Don't they have to deal with it once a month for like, half their lives? They do the birthin'. There's a thought... we all come into the 'verse covered in it. Sure, they clean your screaming, twisted little face before they give you to mommy... and maybe that's it. That's really the only time we _are_ covered in it. Wet, greasy amphibians gasping for life. Trauma and the sudden separation from our creator. Our world exploding in a slick, viscous rupture of gore.

But they never get it right in the vids. Playtime-pretend games... even when they use animal blood... they've got anti-coagulants in it. Too splashy. Watery. It doesn't run, it _flows_... setting aside that pressure thing, the spray. Not saying it's like molasses in January, but that shit is sticky - and if it ain't hot - body temperature, coagulates pretty quick. Kinda like the inside of a banana, that pasty layer inside *heh* the skin. But you get what I mean? It clings, all viscus. And the cells shrink as they die, dry out, cake. Depends on ambient heat. And it blackens as the oxygen leaves it.

You wonder how I know that, when I profess to go for the clean kill. Eh... every wound ain't a kill shot, and I've been opened up all over. Sometimes you gotta sit there and stare at it for a while, can't move, don't have a medic on call. When you bleed, you just gotta calm down. That's what they teach you. Get all fuckin' riled up and your adrenaline makes your heart pump faster, harder... and you lose more juice.

Had to play dead more than once. Good adversary will know when you possum. Even when you hold your breath, not many people can go all limp. Bunched muscles, the tick of a pulse - in your arm, your throat, your ankle... You know rigor doesn't set in immediately, right? But the real kicker is the blood. If it's still liquid - still flowing from your wounds. If it ain't crusted... or those nasty little bubbles popped... double tap time. Fuckin' hated clean-up sweeps. Only thing worse is finding one of your own, know that touchin' 'em, movin' 'em - ain't even worth the pain it'll put the victim through. Triage, they call it. I fuckin' call it mercy killing.

So yeah. Had the little-mary-sunshine, nurse nightengale burned outta me by the military. Hardly first time I'd looked death in the face, that's why they picked me outta the reform school. Bit too far gone for polite society already. But the military will make a pack mule outta a natural born killer - serve you up on the front lines and suddenly you've redeemed your worthless life by facing what society won't. They ride you till your head gets blown off, and they replace you with another one just like me. Meat grinder.

'Cept I didn't go down. I was good at their little war games. Too good. Saw some shit I shouldn't have, and then refused to suicide like they wanted. Did the right thing. Trusted the system once. Look where it got me.

So yeah. That's our little spelunking trip through the dark today. Confessions of a serial killer. Shit... even that don't work as a label, strictly speaking. I'd have to have a type. An M.O. ...ok, you got me with the knives, but that's just goddamn courtesy. I'll X you with a pen or blaster, depends on what I got on hand. *heh* The teacup bit is true. But I don't go looking for trouble. I could go the rest of my fucking life and not kill a human. Got no qualms if you come for me first. I just don't _care._ Put you down if I have to.

Now scram. This little confession done woke the beast and we need some alone time to work it out.

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_If you like this, I'd suggest checking out __"Hades & Persephone"__ -I have it favorited. The author postulates that Rid is, in fact, a full blown psychopath. And she takes it places it shouldn't go... but does. Nightmares based on fact. *shudders*_

_I consulted the Hare Psychopathy Checklist for this... and I think anyone writing about Riddy should have a look at it. Just check wikipedia for "psychopathy." _

_But as I said... he's a different animal. *kiss-kiss*_


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